Waiting to Exhale...Inhale...Exhale

The ancient practice of breath work is having a renaissance and with good reason.

-  JENNIFER KING LINDLEY

In her early 20s, Jasmine Marie was feeling emotionally and physically burned out. "I had recently I graduated from a top business school and was working in a very stressful corporate career in global beauty," recalls Marie. "The culture there, and in the industry in general, was highly stressful. I was going to the doctor all the time, developing mysterious rashes, and my nervous system was out of whack."

Then, one day at the church in Harlem where she volunteered, Marie happened upon a breath work class. Spending that hour just inhaling and exhaling was a powerful tonic. "When I left that day, I felt less claustrophobic," she says. "My body felt so relieved."

Marie began making breath work a regular practice. "That first experience opened a door that opened a door," she says. In time, she was able to think about her life with a little more distance. "Breath work was the catalyst that brought me back to myself, back to a healthy relationship with my body," Marie says.

Eventually, she left the corporate world and founded Black Girls Breathing, a social impact organization that gives minority women accessible tools to help cope with the effects of chronic stress.

Using the power of the breath to heal body and soul is far from new. "Breath work is part of many of the world's major healing systems that have been practiced for thousands of years, from Ayurveda to traditional Chinese medicine," says Jaclyn Tolentino, DO, a senior physician at Parsley Health. "I spend 10 minutes every morning doing hatha yogic breathing. It calms and centers me and puts me in the proper frame of mind for seeing patients."